Jack-of-all trades Jay Miller writes about boxing, high school sports and music. A native of West Bridgewater, he was captain of his high school track team. He played football at Stonehill College. He also played guitar, bass, sax, bongos and drums.
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Jack-of-all trades Jay Miller writes about boxing, high school sports and music. A native of West Bridgewater, he was captain of his high school track team. He played football at Stonehill College. He also played guitar, bass, sax, bongos and drums. He and a friend had a duo, covering Dylan and Creedence. While in grad school at Boston University, he spent many free afternoons at Fenway Park. He covered Marvin Hagler from bouts at Brockton High to Las Vegas, has written for The Ring, Fight Fax and Boxing Illustrated. He began reviewing music for The Patriot Ledger in 1986, along with all kinds of sports. He's been on the PawSox beat since about 1998. He once met Bo Diddley at the old K-K-K-Katies in Kenmore Square, and still wonders whatever happened to The Ultimate Spinach.

Terry Adams is the kind of omnivorous music fan who's always eager to hear every new thing, and soak up every little nuance of pop culture. That's the sort of disorder that often leads folks to become music writers, but Adams took a better path, founding the group NRBQ back in 1966.

NRBQ, with its latest album "Brass Tacks" just released on June 17, swings through the area this weekend, with a Friday show at The Met Cafe in Pawtucket, and a Saturday show at The RegattaBar in Harvard Square. Both shows will also feature The Whole Wheat Horns augmenting the quartet.

Adams is the only original member in the current lineup of NRBQ (originally intended as an abbreviation of New Rhythm and Blues Quartet), but the band sounds as if all four members had been there from the start. Guitarist/vocalist Scott Ligon and drummer Conrad Choucroun have been with the band for seven years, while bassist Casey McDonough joined in 2012.† The new album's dozen cuts include ten new songs, with six either written or co-written by Adams. Ligon and McDonough wrote two songs each, and also collaborated with Adams on another.

The new album is certainly congruent with NRBQ's past work, in that the unifying principle of the music is that anything goes in terms of possible influences, and their special brand of rock 'n' roll touches upon every potential form of roots music.† While that approach might suggest chaos is always an option, NRBQ has for decades crafted appealing and upbeat music, with witty lyrics that often provide intelligent commentary on contemporary life.

Adams noted that he feels a real kinship with Ligon, and the guitarist has said he felt he was mant to be in this band, even when he saw them for the first time as a teenager. Ligon penned the tune that opens the album, the 1950-60s-sounding pop number "Waitin' On My Sweetie Pie." Adams' keyboards on the song sound like a calliope, lending it all a surreal, playful tone.

"Whenever Scott and I get together it somehow comes outy sounding like that," Adams laughed from his Chicago home. "Scott and Casey also really sound like that. But that's a simple song, and those are always the hardest ones to get a good take on. Scott and I have been working together for eight years now, and three studio albums, as well as one under my name, and I believe he has a real feel for what I've been doing all these years. And, of course, Casey had worked with Scott for a long time before joining us, so we have really good, strong ties."

"When it comes to the drummer, Conrad Choucroun, we'd known him since he was 19," Adams added. "Tom Ardolino (original NRBQ drummer and longtime Adams pal, who died two years ago) had even said a few years ago, 'if anything ever happens to me, that's the guy to get.' So everyone in the band now has a real solid tie to the music."

It's especially crucial that everyone in NRBQ be simpatico, because of the band's approach to music. Just as any kind of coloring might show up in a composition, a live performance is not strictly bound by those compositions. NRBQ's attitude is much more of a jazz approach than most pop bands, but it just comes down to an openness, a willingness to explore a bit.

As Adams has said previously, "As for the sound, my teenage culture has been in the music since I started the band. Sun Ra and the Three Stooges, it all makes sense to me."

"I was talking about the overall culture, and absorbing all of that stuff as a kid," Adams said, commenting on his own words. "Musically, of course it all started out with Bo Diddley and guys like that, but also Sun Ra and jazz people, who were also on the radio back then, and rockers like Duane Eddy. Those are all influences on me and it all comes out in the music I write. Somehow, out of the combination of all these influences, you get an artistic identity of your own."

If that mixmaster of influences produces a sound that straddles genres, or goes beyond genres, that's so much the better, the way Adams sees it.

"I never believed an artist signs up to go into a pre-existing concept," said Adams. "That reminds me of elementary school, where they have everyone line up in neat lines. I was always the kid who turned sideways, anything to make sure I did not conform. My view of influences, musical and otherwise, is that if you let everything in, everything comes out in what you create."

One of the most stunning examples of that philosophy on the new album is "Places Far Away," a song Adams wrote when he was 15, where some listeners have noted a Sun Ra tinge. The song deftly combines pop and avant-garde elements; it could be a film noir soundtrack with odd tangents, as if the hero turned a corner and met Laurel and Hardy.

"Back home in Louisville, I did not do well taking piano lessons," Adams explained. "They did not inspire me, but starting about 1963 I began studying with a composer. I wanted to make music that would do to people, what it does to me. So instead of toiling over piano books, I was composing every week. I didn't have lyrics to that one until years later, but my aim was to focus on song structures, and making something that lasts."

"It is funny you compare that to a movie soundtrack," Adams added. "I appeared in the film "Short Cuts," years ago, and we also made a lot of music for the soundtrack. I actually threw that tune in, so it is in 'Short Cuts,' although totally uncredited."

Another notable new cut is "Love This Love We Got," a slightly skewed love song with strutting piano, almost like Randy Newman visiting New Orleans.

"That's the first time in NRBQ history we have two piano players on the same song," said Adams with a chuckle. "Scott joined me on piano on that one, and we finished it in 15 minutes. I think I'm in the left speaker, and Scott's on the right. We're the rocking version of Ferrante and Teicher now!"

The new album is packed with hidden pop gems, like the lilting, Beach Boys-like love song "Sit In My Lap," the mock panic of "I'm Not Here," or Adams' barbed take on credit cards, "Greetings from Delaware."

"One of the best things about this band is that I have the luxury of having better singers than I am," said Adams of 'Sit on My Lap.' "Scott has a beautiful voice, and a real feel for my work, so it is easy to write for someone like that. 'I'm Not Here' is just about a guy who wants to get away for a few minutes of peace and quiet. As a touring musician, you need credit cards for checking into hotels and so on, so I have gotten a lot of 'Greetings from Delaware' and they are not always the most friendly messages. I think a lot of people can relate to that. And that song's chorus has a definite echo of the old '60s pop tune, "Please Please Mr. Postman," where you're almost pleading with the mailman--'don't come to my box!"

Adams and NRBQ haven't played Boston a few years, and this will be their maiden RegattaBar gig. Both shows this weekend should feature plenty of songs new and old, even their gliding '60s rock treatment of the old Rodgers and Hammerstein classic "Getting to Know You." Just don't expect everything to sound just like it does on record.

"I'm not happy unless I'm doing something new," said Adams. "It's like that when we play. We like the risk of random chances happening in our music, so there are no really strict arrangements. Making the music too predictable takes the fun out of it. A lot of people say that makes us a rock band with a jazz attitude, and it has always been that way."

The Met Cafe is located at 1005 Main St. in Pawtucket, and Friday's show is scheduled to start at 8:30 p.m. with all tickets $20. (Call 401-729-1005 or check www.themetri.com for more information) The RegattaBar is located in the Charles Hotel at One Bennett St., Harvard Square in Cambridge, and Saturday's show is slated for 7:30 p.m., with all tickets $25. (Call 617-395-7757 or check www.regattabarjazz for more information).